I thought about my ex, the fourteen
or so men she slept with in our bed,

while the course director observed my activity
on similes, which was a big hit.

“Mr. Pillman is like an onion; he smells
and is disliked by a large portion of the population.”

“Mr. Pillman is like a starfish; he’s cute
but insignificant in the grand scheme of things.”

“Mr. Pillman is like Wal-Mart; he’s cheap
and attracts strange people at night.”

Only at night? I thought. And then I thought this:
It is going to get better. And eventually it did,

and I found someone else,
and my life leveled out,

and a store not carrying velcro wall hangers,
or a specific kind of salsa,

was again gravely offensive.

Nate Pillman was the first place fiction winner of The Puritan’s 2012 Thomas Morton Memorial Prize and a finalist for The Tusculum Review’s 2013 Poetry Prize. His work has also appeared or is forthcoming in PANK, North American Review, New Ohio Review, Bayou Magazine, and Mid-American Review.